Posted on

The Quarterly Report – January 2020

It is pretty much the same old story in San Francisco since the last Quarterly Report. Always good to look both ways when crossing roads in this town, even when the street is a one-way. Chesa Boudin did win the election for District Attorney and did lay off a few attorneys which got some people all wound up. Kimberley Guilfoyle , the former wife of Governor Gavin Newsom had an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle titled San Francisco’s dangerous new DA . The title pretty much sums up the article.

For criminals, actions should have consequences. That will also be true in 2020 at the ballot box when voters are provided a choice between protecting law and order or protecting criminals. Kimberly Guilfoyle – senior adviser to Donald J. Trump for President Inc.

Indeed! Let’s protect law and order! Criminals such as Donald Trump should be prosecuted according to the letter of the law starting with the United States Constitution. If this were the case, Trump will be in jail very soon.

What Guilfoyle leaves out of the article is Chesa Boudin’s fight to turn around the chronic incarceration of “people of color.”  Chesa Boudin’s swearing in ceremony evidently was amazing in that people of all walks of life attended and the speeches were superb.

One of the topics that Guilfoyle noted in her op-ed was “Boudin seeks to end the prosecution of what he deems “quality of life crimes,” including public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, and blocking a sidewalk.” This is an absurd comment. San Francisco presently does not prosecute these crimes anyway – public camping and urination is not new to these parts and I have never seen these prosecuted save for one time when the police did a clearing of an entire tent city under Interstate 280.

Weather

Fortunately the rain arrived before Thanksgiving which helped to put out the forest fires. It has continued to rain and the Sierra snow-pack is about normal. There is plenty of very good skiing in the mountains. The surf has often been very good but quite big for weeks on end.

Sporting News

Being a fair-weather fan, I must say it pretty difficult not to be drawn into the NFL post season games when the home team is winning.  The San Francisco 49ers are headed to the Super Bowl after dominating both the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers in the playoffs. They play the Kansas City Chiefs on February 2nd.

We took in the 49er – Vikings game from a bar called “Old 40” at Donner Ski Ranch. In attendance were a variety of folk – families, retired folk and ski bums. One fine ski bum insisted that my beer was always filled with his pitcher that he often tasked me with guarding the pitcher whenever he left to relieve himself. It is always fun to enjoy a game with strangers when the home team wins.

The Club and Arts Scene

There are still a lot of places in San Francisco to hear live music, however another venue will be closing. The club Amnesia on Valencia Street is calling it quits. The rent is too high. It is an unsustainable business model. And so it goes.

Posted on

The Quarterly Report – October 2019

As the news cycle gets even shorter and shorter but justice and real change seem to take longer and longer,  and identity politics rules the day, here is your “slow news” report. In actuality, most news today is simply distraction and entertainment controlled by fewer and fewer very wealthy players. That people use social media as a news source is unfortunate and simply a “school for scandal. ” When high ranking officials actually go to jail that is news. When large icebergs fall off a  Greenland glacier that is news. When PG&E shuts off power to 300,000 people that is news. Otherwise, it all seems to be conjecture and a circus.

Weather

“I get the news I need on the weather report”
– Paul Simon – The Only Living Boy In New York

Late September and early October the Indian Summer snuck up on us folks in San Francisco. It is that magical time before the winter rains when the days are still long enough to surf either before work or after work.  The light is often golden and there is a peacefulness in the air. It is reassuring with all the uncertainty in the world that the seasons go on unchanged.

The first weekend of October is the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate park. There was not too much bluegrass  as Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs are all under ground and the booking committee seems to turn a deaf ear on the local young pickers – why A.J Lee and Blue Summit, Front Country never get a spot is just strange. Instead of bluegrass there was a lot of rock and roll, folk, Alabama soul and even some Americana jazz. An all-woman mariachi band from New York played as well. All together I saw 17 shows and will give a run down in a future post.

Politics

“Make sure you have the record player on.”
– Joe Biden ( at a Democratic Party Debate)

There is little to report on the political front. That Joe Biden is into turntables and record players was news to me. I agree completely with Joe. Get off your cellphone and your selfies and check out the whole vinyl experience. It will slow you down a bit and definitely improve your mental health.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill making it so presidential candidates will be required to submit the last five years of their taxes in order to appear on the state primary ballot. The Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act requires a candidate for president or California governor to file copies of their Internal Revenue Service filings for the most recent five years at least 98 days ahead of the primary election. Sounds like a good idea. Why would someone running for  the highest office in the land have any financial matters to hide. If they need to hide stuff, they probably should not run for office. The bill was immediately held up in court by the Trump lawyers.

On Tuesday, November 5th, 2019 there will be an election in San Francisco. One of the seats is for District Attorney. The San Francisco Journal is endorsing  Chesa Boudin for District Attorney 2019. Chesa Boudin parents (dad, still in jail) were in The Weather Underground, the radical political group in the early 70’s. Chesa is a very smart guy who is a good speaker, well read and knows what he is talking about and qualified to be District Attorney. He has lived the criminal justice system his entire life visiting his parents in prison.  Some of his major ideas is getting rid of cash bail. I met Chesa at a house party and was very impressed. Hope he gets the gig. Vote November 5th – Chesa Boudin for District Attorney.


Chesa Boudin’s Platform

Baseball

There is only cryin’ in baseball
– Paul Lyons

In the San Francisco Bay Area the baseball season ended abruptly when the Oakland A’s choked in a one game playoff against the Tampa Devil Rays. For the Oakland A’s the last twenty years this seems to be the standard procedure. Play very well in the regular season. Win almost 100 games. Go to the playoffs. Lose in the first round.

The San Francisco Giants, by the All-Star break, never had a chance. Their manager Bruce Bochy who won three World Series with the team retired to a standing ovation.

I do not follow American football so you will have to ask someone else about that stuff. Grown men running into each other smashing each others skulls seems like a fool’s errand.

Sporting News

The biking is fantastic. The surfing is starting to come together. For the last two weeks, there has been a very small swell in the water and the winds have been light, especially in the morning.  A larger swell is due by the end of next week.

That is the The Quarterly Report – October 2019.

Posted on

The San Francisco Quarterly Report – March 2019

Weather

Since the last report there has been extreme weather. Late in 2018 a fire season began that was massive. Whole neighborhoods in Santa Rosa burned to the ground. The city of Paradise in the Sierra foothills burned to the ground. There were massive fires in southern California and all up and down the coast. In San Francisco the smoke was so thick you had to wear a mask to breath outside. From San Francisco, Oakland was not visible.

Then on Thanksgiving Day the rains came and it was a gift from the heavens. Since then the rain and storm dump on the Sierra. Snow-pack is at 150% of normal. For people who like to hike up to the tops of mountains and ski down – that activity will be available until the end of June. We are just now beginning to dry out.

Politics

Governor Jerry Brown has retired and been replaced with the former mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom. Jerry Brown has been a great public servant, and we will miss his generally good judgement, candid sense of humor, honesty and fiscal skills – why Republicans get the moniker of being fiscal conservatives when they always drive federal and state governments in to debt is strange.  Jerry leaves Governor with money in the bank. We know that with Gavin, at least we now have a Governor with way better hair but certainly less brains. Let us pray that Gavin uses good judgement. We know he has no sense of humor.

Sporting News

I do not pay attention of professional sports so this is about the local sports. The skiing is fantastic, there is plenty of snow. Biking is off the charts when you can hit a clear day after a rain, 50 degree weather. Great light.  Light winds. The surfing is off the charts with many head-high and overhead days with off-shore winds and long period swells.

Surf in Norther California – 2019

San Francisco Construction Boom

A few photos of San Francisco and the changing skyline. Building all over town is extensive. The new Warriors stadium is looking like it is on schedule. Warehouses are being torn down. Condos are being built in record time.

Below are the new buildings around 3rd Street. The Warriors new stadium is almost done. UCSF has an entire campus. Kaiser and a lot of medical, pharmaceutical and biotech companies abound. Not a single corner store anywhere in sight but massive concrete parking garages for all the wealthy professionals driving in from Marin and Walnut Creek.

Posted on

The Quarterly Report – September 2018

As the news-cycle screams forward with ever-more velocity, here is your San Francisco quarterly report – a condensed look at all the really important things going on around San Francisco over the last three months. Perhaps this sounds presumptuous, but I think as a species we often have a difficulty slowing down and observing and taking note of what is going on around us and documenting these events and changes.

Politics
San Francisco elected London Breed as new mayor. She is the first African-American woman to be mayor. So far so good, but her election was one were the progressive side of the San Francisco Democratic party was left eating their lunch. As often the case, some pretty clever politicking ruled the day as Ron Conway surely pulled some switches with some big cash and clever strategies. Often in politics if there is no news that is good news and people are simply doing their jobs but you never know. It will be interesting to see how long the big open smile on London’s face will keep smiling. City politics always gets controversial in San Francisco but things are pretty much the status-quo. Homelessness everywhere. The Tenderloin full of junkies and shopping carts for storage and portable closets. Skyscrapers leaning evermore one direction and lots of cranes all over the place building condos and stadiums.  The Golden State Warriors stadium is being built in record time. Seemingly two feet above sea level and that place will have a shelf-life of twenty years or until the next iceberg melts.

The usual op-ed writers dig into familiar positions. The latest is Tim Redmond bashing Heather Knight.  I think that what really needs to happen is for BART executives to draw straws to get the job of cleaning the 16th Street BART station for a year . That would get people a bit more focused at the top and they could make a reality TV show about the whole thing and make millions. They could call it “Strange Smells” or “Altered States of Vomit.”

Weather
The fire season was pretty much on fire this summer. There were so many fires you kind of lost track. I am wondering if the next time I go up to Lake County there will be any trees left at all. I am sure there are still burns going on now as it has not rained yet. A few months ago, in San Francisco you would wake up in the morning to white ash dust sprinkled lightly all over your car. This is getting so common now that you hardly think twice about it.

We are heading into our Indian Summer weather but so far the North West winds have continued to blow and we have had just a few warm days. It really is anyone’s guess what kind of rain we get this year. I have always been of the mind that our water supply comes down to five really good storms that last about three days each and dump all that snow up in the Sierra. This happened in January 2017 but last year was pretty dry overall. Mother nature does always bat last even though we think we are omnipotent, she always has her way in the end.

Baseball
Speaking of batting, while the San Francisco Giants are almost in last place the ever-scrappy Oakland A’s are looking to be heading to some sort of playoff birth. I have not followed them this year but, being the fair-weather fan I am, will watch and root for them down the stretch. Barry Zito do you still have that curve ball?

Tech Industry and Google Buses
Here they are. A gaggle of Google buses. In the mornings they leave. In the evenings they return, pushing there way back into the city. Raising the rents and making it impossible for people not on the same pay-scale to live San Francisco. I hear this sort of tech-commuting is happening in other cities as well.

Here is a gallery of Google buses for those who are interested on what they look like up close. What is interesting is that they have no advertising on the sides. Sort of ironic as most the people in the buses are in the end working to market and sell something. You would think they would have the imagination to leverage the situation but then again perhaps they prefer to try to be incognito. Pretty sneaky.

Sunsets are Beginning
One of the things that keeps people living in this golden state are the sunsets. The fog is starting to push back and we are starting to get those great autumn golden colors and magical light with its sharp, crisp shadows. Hopefully by the next report I can talk about all the great rain storms we will be getting.

Until then.

Posted on

News from San Francisco – Quarterly Report

The Weather

While the rest of the country is experiencing some pretty strange weather with the Hurricanes in the south and the cold in the north, here in San Francisco we have had two weeks of heat. While the heat records were broken in early September, the heat has not really subsided. Presently it is pretty muggy out there and as I write this I hear thunder and see lighting, both pretty infrequent in San Francisco on the coast.

Two weekends ago, starting September 1, the temperature rose to over 105 degrees and set all-time heat records for San Francisco and fortunately the waves at the coast were only about 3 feet high. The beach was packed and little kids were jumping and playing in the waves. Probably a weekend they will never forget. You could surf without a wetsuit and many went out simply for a swim in the ocean just to cool down. Try that in January my friends.

[CLICK ON IMAGES]

Construction and More Construction

While the tearing down of warehouses and the building of modern luxury condos continues at an alarming rate, everyone is simply trying to figure out how long it will take to finish the top of the Salesforce tower. This tower looms large and is visible from all over the city, but the top, last tip is taking forever to complete. What are they debating? Circumcised or uncircumcised? All glass or steel plates? Flags or no flags? Whatever happens no-doubt Mark Benioff will be up there peering down upon the hospital named after him and the rest of the city and thinking up new ways to leverage all the customer data he has in the vaults.

The Old-time San Francisco Does Exist

Contrary to many old salts, the old bohemian edge does still exist, you just have to know where to look. Most of the techies are oblivious to some of the amazing music talent in this town. You simply have to know where to go. Apologies to those looking for advice on the matter, as I like the places just as crowded as they already are – filled with old friends.

Posted on

News from San Francisco

People are making some sick money around here! I was walking down the street in SOMA and all these hundred and thousand dollar bills came flying out of  this Audi sports car and they just keep driving.

— Anonymous conversation overheard on the streets of San Francisco – 2017

The tents with the homeless surviving inside sort of move around and play musical chairs with the freeway on-ramps. That has not changed in the last 5 years. The road repair in San Francisco sometimes means that the streets start talking another language, especially when riding a bike.

What road repair can do to messages..

The season has turned from spring to  summer.  The fog is beginning to roll in and we head to the coast only at opportune times. Morning low tide is the best in the summer. If you land in San Francisco at SFO and head north up Interstate 101 in the afternoon, during summer the fog will dance with hills like two tango dancers. An amazing sight. Gives you hope that the house is not completely burning down. If the heat becomes unbearable out there on the plains, you can cool down here on the coast. Like winter in the Midwest a time to watch the weather report and nourish the few sunny days. By July 4th the fireworks will as usual be obscured by the fog.

Below are some photos from March and April 2017…

  • The parking lots are falling into the ocean. This is from March when the waves were better.
  • Two pickers at Sunday Streets on Valencia
  • People are making some much money around here, I was walking down the street and all these thousand dollar bills came flying out of Audi sports car.
  • Radio Havana on Valencia
  • Looking down Ocean

CLICK ON IMAGES +